WOOD STOCK (SCALA CINEMA, SABO)

WOOD STOCK (SCALA CINEMA, SABO)

Woodstock is a 1970 documentary of the Western pop culture; Woodstock festival took place in August, 1969 somewhere near Bethel in New York. The film was directed by Michael Wadleigh and won an Academy award. It featured a number of artists which included Joan Baez, Crosby, Still Nash, Joe Cocker, Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly and the family Stone and of course the Iconic Jimi Hendrix who played Spanish Castle Magic and Voodoo Child.

Hendrix was the guitarist that caught everyone’s fancy. It was hardly surprising that in the 2nd term of 1971, when we were in the Third form, many boys “bolted” from the school premises without permission to watch a movie, which reputation had preceded it among the more trendy school mates, at Scala Cinema, Sabo.

The cat was let out of the bag when late Mrs. Ighodalo saw many young students who looked like GCI boys around the City Center. None of them wore his school uniform and they were hustling for taxis. Upon getting to her destination, she called Chiefy up to ask why so many of his students were stranded in town looking for taxis. Chiefy was said to have been taken aback and to have promptly asked his prefects to find out what was going on and to report back to him promptly. The prefects did their snooping and reported back that there was a popular American film, showing at Scala, which had caught the boys’ fancy; many of them must have headed there, without permission!

Livid, Chiefy ordered that the school truck, Black Maria, should convey the prefects to Scala; while he too set out after them in his private car. Chiefy and some of his prefects paud their way into cinema hall but started combing the hall, row by row, for GCI boys. Chiefy recognized and call by name, as many as he saw, even in the weak cinema hall lights. His instruction to the prefects that he left outside was to lead student exiting the hall into the school truck packed outside, to take him back to school!

Of course, no sooner had he and his prefects embark on the exercise that pandemonium broke out at someone’s shout that Chiefy was in the hall! From this time on, each bolter had to deal with the most unexpected situation independently. The new boys in the bolting game rushed to the exit nearest to them, only to fall into the hands of the prefects waiting for them outside. The more experienced bolters simply stayed put, completed watching the movie and returned calmly to their house-grounds.

Even for these ones, Chiefy’s chess move was comprehensive and deft. Before he set out for Scala, he had contacted the house masters of the four houses and requested them to casually ensure that rolls were called at each assembly, and the records were handed to the house masters on that night. Unaware of this, most of the experienced bolters who had escaped cut the hairs, etc., in order to look different - in the hope of bluffing their way through. However, the next morning, even if it couldn’t be proved that they went to Scala, they had to explain why they weren’t on the house grounds when the rolls were called on the previous night. In the end, only a few lucky ones escaped Chiefy’s net.

Painfully, I was one of those caught; bolting as it were, for the first time and snared in Chiefy’s net. The punishments came hard and fast. At the next morning’s assembly, my name was on the list of those who had to serve two weeks’ suspension from the school grounds. I told my dad that I went to watch an “educational” film but that didn’t save me from his slaps and hard knocks on the head. The more important life-lesson for me from the experience was to devise better ways to respond to peer pressure.

The Class of ’69 proved, again, to be a major contributor to the ranks of the students suspended for bolting to watch Woodstock in Scala. Chiefy was clearly disappointed and saddened by the large contingent of law breakers; more so, with the manner by which it was detected. He ensured that his teachers, friends and prefects were more alert to the risks and possibilities of such “mass” breakouts!
- Ayo Mosuro (’69, Field House) & Sola Olopade (’69, Swanston House),

Submitted By: 

MOSURO Ayo
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